Welcome to The Hill Rally Club

The origin of the very first Hill Rally

The Senior Service Hill Rally of 1971 can be traced as far back as 1969 when a BBC TV programme – Wheelbase – made a 28 minute film called Off The Beaten Track.  This programme followed the 13th running of a now highly regarded event in the off-road world ‘Rallye des Cimes’.  This rally is based around Licq Atherey in the Basque region of the Pyrenees, France.

In 2022 the ‘Rallye des Cimes’ was in its 66th year and still draws an entry list of around 100 competitors from the UK and Europe.

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Hill Rallies in the UK

The first UK Hill Rally in 1971 was based in North Wales, around Llangollen and the then head of Ford Rallysport – Stuart Turner – commented in the BBC film that ‘the terrain in Wales was similar to that of the Pyrenees’

That first Hill Rally was won by a brand new vehicle, the Range Rover, driven by Roger Crathorne and co-driven by Vyrnwy Evans.

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In the 1970’s there were five Hill Rallies and then it wasn’t until the 1990’s that they resumed with good entry numbers but unfortunately in the 2000’s the numbers declined and despite attempts to resurrect Hill Rallies in 2015/16 the entry numbers were disappointing.

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In 2018/19 two single venue Hill Rallies were held at Walters Arena, Neath, South Wales.

The single venue Scottish Borders Hill Rally held in November each year at Forrest Estate, Dalry regularly attracts good entry numbers.

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In May 2022 the multi-venue Welsh Borders Hill Rally was held, based in Welshpool, Powys. This event used closed road sections and was popular with competitors, local residents and the town mayor who would like to see it happen again.  Founding members of The Hill Rally Club were part of the organizing team on this event.

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The Future

With the founders of the club having always been fans of Hill Rallies, and, having also competed in a couple of French Tout Terrain events including ‘Rallye Des Cimes’,  it has been an ambition to be more involved in organizing and running multi-venue Hill Rallies within the UK based on the French style of event.  With the advent of being able to close public roads for motorsport purposes this has now become possible. Therefore, we hope as a club to be involved in organizing, and assisting other clubs in organizing / running successful Hill Rallies within the UK.  It is hoped that other clubs will organize Hill Rallies in their part of the UK so that there are several events taking place each year to complement the long established Scottish Borders Hill Rally.